Orval Faubus Character Analysis in Warriors Don’t Cry

– The Governor of Arkansas and a segregationist. Faubus sends soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard to Central High School, but he does so with the purpose of neither ensuring the integration of the school nor maintaining its segregation—only to carry out orders. Faubus opposes integration, claiming that it would unleash violence. He clashes with President Eisenhower over what the president sees as Faubus’s unwillingness to cooperate with the Supreme Court’s order to integrate schools “with all deliberate speed.” In 1959, Faubus shuts down all Little Rock schools in yet another effort to defy federal orders to integrate.

Orval Faubus Quotes in Warriors Don’t Cry

The Warriors Don’t Cry quotes below are all either spoken by Orval Faubus or refer to Orval Faubus. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Racism and Living Under Jim Crow Theme Icon

). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Simon Pulse edition of Warriors Don’t Cry published in 2007.

It’s Thursday, September 26, 1957. Now I have a bodyguard. I know very well that the President didn’t send those soldiers just to protect me but to show support for an idea—the idea that a governor can’t ignore federal laws. Still, I feel specially cared about because the guard is there. If he wasn’t there, I’d hear more of the voices of those people who say I’m a nigger […] that I’m not valuable, that I have no right to be alive [….] Thank you, Danny.

Related Characters: (speaker), , ,

Related Symbols:

Page Number and Citation: 106

Explanation and Analysis:

Orval Faubus Character Timeline in Warriors Don’t Cry

The timeline below shows where the character Orval Faubus appears in Warriors Don’t Cry. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...the NAACP files suit to make integration begin immediately, despite overwhelming disfavor in Arkansas and Governor Orval Faubus’s commitment not to comply with integration. (full context)

The family learns that Governor Faubus will send the Arkansas National Guard to the school—not to act “as segregationists or integrationists,”... (full context)

In the newspaper, Melba reads about plans for a conference between Governor Faubus , President Eisenhower, and members of Eisenhower’s cabinet. Faubus asks for a compromise, which Eisenhower... (full context)

Just before Governor Faubus’s court hearing to account for his stalling integration, the teens are invited to Daisy Bates’s... (full context)

Relationships, Romance, and Empathy Theme Icon

Governor Faubus’s day in court arrives on September 19th. The federal court decision would be precedent-setting and... (full context)

Melba hopes to meet Governor Faubus face-to-face, believing that he will be in the courtroom. The Little Rock Nine enter the... (full context)

...how black people smell bad. The leaders of the Arkansas National Guard arrive, followed by Governor Faubus’s attorneys. One of the attorneys explains that elected officials do not need to be present... (full context)

...looks after Thelma. The Honorable Judge Ronald Davies enters the courtroom. Tom Harper, one of Governor Faubus’s attorneys, asks that the case be dismissed due to an absence of a three-judge panel,... (full context)

...of Education decision, which reminds Melba of her potential rapist. Judge Davies announces his decision: Governor Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to thwart integration, which would proceed at Central High.” Someone... (full context)

That evening, the Pattillo family watches Governor Faubus deliver a statement from his Sea Island, Georgia retreat, urging NAACP leaders and school officials... (full context)

...asserting that it threatens “the very safety of the United States and the free world.” Governor Faubus delivers “a pleading speech” in which he declares that Little Rock has been occupied. Later... (full context)

...she reads stories such as that of FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover getting angry with Governor Faubus for saying that the FBI secretly held the teenage girls for hours of questioning. Melba... (full context)

...Minnijean, and Melba sit down with Sammy Dean Parker, who was in the newspaper hugging Governor Faubus , thanking him for keeping the Little Rock Nine out of school, and two other... (full context)

...the remaining seven students back into Central. By 1958, they win their court battle, but Governor Faubus shuts down all of Little Rock’s high schools. The segregationists also start to put pressure... (full context)

...same troopers who tried to keep her from entering Central High. A reporter says that Governor Faubus released a statement saying, if he could do it all over again, “he’d do the... (full context)